Tag Archives: Apple

After four years at Automattic, you are given an awesome MacBook that has been customized by ColorWare to have a glowing WordPress logo instead of an Apple logo as well as being painted any color you wish.

My four year anniversary of being officially hired was last March (I was also on contract for 9 months) but as one of the handful of Windows users in the company, I originally opted to pass on the custom MacBook and stick with normal Windows laptops. I’ve used Windows for 20 years now and my primary machine is a very powerful desktop computer that I’ve built for gaming.

However I recently tried to use a Mac for something and realized that I had absolutely no clue how to use it. I didn’t even know about Finder! Yeah, pretty bad.

Additionally I saw some very cool looking customized MacBooks at my company’s annual full company meetup that made me want one too.

So I decided to get one after all and I’m super happy I did! It’s absolutely beautiful and I can install Windows on it so that I can use both operating systems.

I went out and bought an iPad Mini with Retina yesterday thanks to a new program at my company. They’ll buy me a new mobile device every 12 months in addition to the existing new laptop every 16 months program. I had originally planned on waiting (a long time) for the iPhone 6 but decided this was a better option.

It’s my first iPad and so far I’m pretty impressed with it, especially the display. The pixel density is quite impressive and makes for a great reading device. It makes my iPhone feel hilariously tiny and squished.

I do already have some complaints about it though:

iCloud: I’ve had an iPhone since launch day of the 4 and each time I upgraded or replaced it, it was just a matter of restoring the device from an iTunes or iCloud backup and it was exactly like the phone before it. Setting up the iPad however was nothing like that. Practically speaking it’s an entirely separate device from my iPhone. I had to set up all of my settings and apps from scratch. It would have been much nicer if it kept my app settings in sync between my two apps, at least at first. Or something. I don’t know. I just know it was a huge pain to get everything set back up.

Lack of universal apps: It was disappointing to discover just how many of my favorite apps were designed only for an iPhone. Thankfully a few of them (but not all) had separate apps designed just for iPads but come on developers, it’s nearly 2014. Get with the program.

Weight: It’s not heavy exactly but it’s not as light as I would like it to be either. If you’re holding it by one corner with your hand, it does make your hand tired after a bit. When I switch back to using my iPhone, it feels like I’m holding a feather.

Still, I’m not regretting getting one. It’ll be nice to have a device that I can more easily read stuff on and consume media with.

Comon Apple, I get that Windows is a competing platform and you’d rather spend your time working on your own stuff, but if you’re going to force me to use iTunes with my iPhone, at least make iTunes not suck. I’ve ranted about iTunes before and while iTunes 10 seems more stable and less laggy so far, it’s still far from perfect.

I mean they can’t even manage to get the little things right. For example, their new logo has horrible transparency:

A simple thing to fix (look at all of the other icons there doing it just fine), but no, Apple had to not bother.

About

Hi and welcome to my blog! My name's Alex Mills, although on the Internet I'm more commonly known as Viper007Bond (or just Viper). I'm a Portland, Oregon web developer who works for an awesome company called Automattic (you've perhaps heard of our WordPress.com blogging website). I contribute to the open-source blogging software WordPress and have written quite a few WordPress plugins. I'm also a big car nut who is really into Top Gear and run the show's biggest fan forums. You can read more about me on my about page.

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